Air conditioner indoor unit

ABSTRACT

An air conditioner indoor unit, comprising a shell, the shell being provided with an indoor air inlet, an outdoor air inlet, and an air outlet, a double side air inlet centrifugal fan being arranged inside the shell, the centrifugal fan comprising a first air inlet side, a second air inlet side, and an air outlet side, the first air inlet side being arranged opposite the indoor air inlet, the second air inlet side being arranged opposite the outdoor air inlet, the air outlet side being arranged opposite the air outlet, and a heat exchanger being arranged between the first air inlet side and the indoor air inlet. The air conditioner indoor unit of the present disclosure is used for adjusting indoor air temperature and quality.

This application is a Continuation of PCT/CN2016/103444 filed Oct. 26,2016, which claims priority to Chinese Patent Application No.201610061609.9, filed on Jan. 28, 2016, titled “AIR CONDITIONER INDOORUNIT”, the entirety of all of which are incorporated by referenceherein.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present disclosure relates to the field of air conditionertechnologies, in particular, to an air conditioner indoor unit.

BACKGROUND

As people pay more and more attention to air quality, air purificationproducts are becoming more and more popular. Relevant air purifiers onthe market improve air quality by sucking indoor air into the machine,treating the pollutants in the air by adsorption, decomposition orconversion, and then discharging them into the room again. However, asair purifiers are used in closed rooms for the long term, due to thelack of fresh air, the oxygen content in the air will gradually drop,causing people to feel stuffed up when breathing indoors. Therefore,opening the window is done from time to time for ventilation. However,if the quality of the outdoor air is poor, the untreated air willdirectly enter the room when the window is opened, thus causing theoriginal air in the room to deteriorate further.

Relevant air conditioners with fresh air systems generally adopt across-flow fan. The cross-flow fan partially opens the shell so that theairflow directly enters the fan in a radial direction. As the airflow israther concentrated at the air inlet of the fan, some blades aresubjected to a large pressure. Therefore, the cross-flow fan has lowanti-resistance capabilities. Moreover, as the direction of the airflowneeds to be forcibly turned in the impeller, there is large air loss atthe head of the fan and the amount of obtained fresh air is too small.As a result, the air exchange speed is slow, and the ventilation effectis unsatisfactory.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present disclosure adopt a technical solution asfollows:

An air conditioner indoor unit comprising a shell is disclosed, wherethe shell being provided with an indoor air inlet, an outdoor air inlet,and an air outlet, a double side air inlet centrifugal fan beingarranged inside the shell, the centrifugal fan comprising a first airinlet side, a second air inlet side, and an air outlet side, the firstair inlet side being arranged opposite the indoor air inlet, the secondair inlet side being arranged opposite the outdoor air inlet, the airoutlet side being arranged opposite the air outlet, and a heat exchangerbeing arranged between the first air inlet side and the indoor airinlet.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

In order to describe technical solutions in embodiments of the presentdisclosure more clearly, the accompanying drawings to be used in thedescription of embodiments will be introduced briefly. The accompanyingdrawings describe some exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure,and a person of ordinary skill in the art may obtain other drawingsaccording to these drawings without paying any creative effort.

FIG. 1 is a schematic structural diagram of an air conditioner indoorunit according to embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of an air conditioner indoorunit mounted on a wall according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure;

FIG. 3 is a front view of a centrifugal fan of an air conditioner indoorunit according to embodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram showing a three-dimensional structure of acentrifugal fan of an air conditioner indoor unit according toembodiments of the present disclosure;

FIG. 5 is a left view of a centrifugal fan of an air conditioner indoorunit according to embodiments of the present disclosure.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The technical solutions in embodiments of the present disclosure will bedescribed clearly and completely with reference to the accompanyingdrawings in the embodiments of the present disclosure. The describedembodiments are some, but not all, of embodiments of the presentdisclosure. All other embodiments made on the basis of the embodimentsof the present disclosure by a person of ordinary skill in the artwithout paying any creative effort shall be included in the protectionscope of the present disclosure.

It should be understood that in the description of the presentdisclosure, orientations or positional relationships indicated by terms“center”, “upper”, “lower”, “front”, “rear”, “left”, “right”,“vertical”, “horizontal”, “top”, “bottom”, “inner”, “outer”, etc. arebased on orientations or positional relationships shown in the drawings,merely to facilitate and simplify the description of the presentdisclosure, but not to indicate or imply that the referred devices orelements must have a particular orientation, or must be constructed oroperated in a particular orientation. Therefore they should not beconstrued as limitations to the present disclosure.

The terms “first” and “second” are used for descriptive purposes onlyand are not to be construed as indicating or implying the relativeimportance or implicitly indicating the number of indicated technicalfeatures. Thus, features defined as “first”, “second” may explicitly orimplicitly include one or more of the features. In the description ofthe present disclosure, “plurality” means two or more unless otherwisespecified.

In the description of the present disclosure, it should be noted thatthe terms “mounted”, “connected”, and “connection” should be understoodin a broad sense unless specifically defined or limited. For example, itmay be a fixed connection, a detachable connection, or it may be anintegrated connection; it may be directly connected, indirectlyconnected through an intermediate medium, or it may be internalconnection between two components. For a person of ordinary skill in theart, the specific meanings of the above terms in the present disclosurecan be understood according to specific circumstances.

Referring to FIG. 1, an air conditioner indoor unit includes a shell(not shown), and the shell is provided with an indoor air inlet 1 and anindoor air outlet 3. A centrifugal fan 4 is arranged inside the shell,and a heat exchanger 5 is arranged between the centrifugal fan 4 and theindoor air inlet 1. The air will get heat-exchanged at the heatexchanger 5, and then be blown out from the indoor air outlet 3 throughthe centrifugal fan 4.

The air conditioner indoor unit according to embodiments of the presentdisclosure includes a shell, and the shell is provided with an indoorair inlet 1, an outdoor air inlet 2 and an indoor air outlet 3; acentrifugal fan 4 installed inside the shell is provided with a firstair inlet side 41 and a second air inlet side 42, and the first airinlet 41 side is arranged opposite the indoor air inlet 1, with a heatexchanger arranged there between. The second air inlet side 42 isarranged opposite the outdoor air inlet 2, and the centrifugal fan 4 isfurther provided with an air outlet side 43, as shown in FIGS. 1 to 2.

In the air conditioner indoor unit provided by embodiments of thepresent disclosure, since the centrifugal fan 4 provided in the shellincludes a first air inlet side 41 and a second air inlet side 42, andthe first air inlet side 41 is arranged opposite the indoor air inlet 1,with a heat exchanger 5 arranged there between, the air will enter theair conditioner from the indoor air inlet 1, get heat-exchanged at theheat exchanger 5, and then be blown out from the indoor air outlet 3,thereby completing the function of adjusting the indoor air temperature.Since the second air inlet side 42 of the centrifugal fan 4 is arrangedopposite the outdoor air inlet 2, the outdoor air will enter thecentrifugal fan 4 from the outdoor air inlet 2 through the second airinlet side 42.s Since the centrifugal fan 4 is provided with an airinlet on a side plate in an axial direction of a housing thereof, theairflow will enter the centrifugal fan 4 in the axial direction,therefore all the blades are simultaneously subjected to force, and thecontact area between the air and the blades is large. As a result, thecentrifugal fan 4 has high anti-resistance capabilities and can obtain alarge amount of fresh air. Consequently, the amount of air blown outfrom the indoor air outlet 3 through the air outlet side 43 of thecentrifugal fan 4 is relatively large, and the air exchange speed of theair conditioner is fast, thereby improving the fresh air-exchangingefficiency of air conditioners.

The centrifugal fan 4 provided by embodiments of the present disclosureincludes a fan hub 44. As shown in FIG. 4, a front plate 45 and a rearplate 46 are respectively arranged on the upper and lower edge of anouter circumference of the fan hub 44, and the fan hub 44 is alsoprovided with a partition plate arranged between the front plate 45 andthe rear plate 46 so as to divide the air outlet side 43 of thecentrifugal fan 4 into a front air outlet side 48 and a rear air outletside 49. If the air conditioner only performs cooling or heatingoperations, the indoor air can only enter from the first air inlet side41 of the centrifugal fan 4, and eventually be blown out from the frontair outlet side 48 close to the front panel 45; if the air conditionerperforms a fresh air cycle, the air only enters from the second inletside 42, and eventually be blown out from the rear air outlet side 49close to the rear panel 46. In embodiments of the present disclosure, anair hole 47 for connecting the first air inlet side 41 and the secondair inlet side 42 can be opened on the fan hub 44 of the centrifugal fan4, as shown in FIGS. 3 to 5, so that when air enters the centrifugal fan4 from only one side, the air can be blown out not only from the frontair outlet side/rear air outlet side of the corresponding side, but partof the air can also flow out through the air hole 47, and then be blownout from the front air outlet side/rear air outlet side on the otherside of the centrifugal fan 4. Since the air is blown out from both thefront air outlet side 48 and the rear air outlet side 49, theair-blowing efficiency of the air conditioner is improved, and it isguaranteed that the centrifugal fan 4 can run efficiently with low noisewhen the air enters from only one side.

If a plurality of air holes 47 are randomly opened on the fan hub 44,the air will enter the other air outlet side through the air holes 47,and the amount of air around the axial direction of the centrifugal fan4 may not even. As a result, the air blown out from different areas ofthe indoor air outlet 3 may not even. Therefore, in embodiments of thepresent disclosure, a plurality of air holes 47 are evenly opened on thecentrifugal fan 4 around the axial direction, so that the air in thecentrifugal fan 4 can evenly flow out to the other air outlet sidethrough the air holes 47 around the axial direction of the centrifugalfan 4, and the air blown out from different areas of the indoor airoutlet 3 is more even.

In embodiments of the present disclosure, the indoor air inlet 1 isprovided with an indoor damper, and the indoor air inlet 1 can be openedor closed by the indoor damper. The outdoor air inlet 2 is provided withan outdoor damper, and the outdoor air inlet 2 can be opened or closedby the outdoor damper. When the indoor air quality is superior to theoutdoor air quality, the indoor damper can be opened and the outdoordamper can be closed, so that the air conditioner can only performscooling or heating operations. When the outdoor air quality is superiorto the indoor air quality, the outdoor damper can be opened and theindoor damper can be closed, so that the air conditioner runs the freshair system to introduce the outdoor air into the room, so as to changethe air and effectively improve the indoor air quality. Especially whencooling in the summer, if the outdoor temperature is lower than theindoor temperature, the indoor damper can be closed and only the outdoordamper is opened, so that the air conditioner can only performs thefresh air operation, and the energy consumption of the air conditionercan be effectively reduced.

If the temperature difference between the outdoor air and the indoor airis large, when the outdoor damper is suddenly opened, a large amount ofoutdoor air will be poured into the room and cause a sudden drop in theindoor temperature, which may easily cause a disease such as a cold.Therefore, in embodiments of the present disclosure, the opening degreeof the outdoor damper is set to be adjustable. For example, a fresh airvalve 21 is used to adjust the opening degree of the outdoor damper.According to actual needs, the opening degree of the outdoor damper isadjusted by the fresh air valve 21, so that the outdoor air graduallyflows into the room, causing the indoor temperature to change slowly. Inthis way, it is not easy to cause diseases, and the user experience isbetter.

If the oxygen content in the indoor air is decreasing, but the qualityof the outdoor air is poor, the air directly blown from the outside willpollute the indoor air, resulting in a decrease in the indoor airquality. Therefore, in embodiments of the present disclosure, an airpurification module 6 is further arranged between the second air inletside 42 of the centrifugal fan 4 and the outdoor air inlet 2. After theoutdoor air is processed by the air purification module 6, the qualityof the outdoor air will be improved. Therefore, after the outdoor airflows into the room, the oxygen content and quality of the indoor airwill both be improved.

In addition, if the quality of both the outdoor air and indoor air ispoor, the outdoor damper can be opened to run the fresh air system. Theoutdoor air will enter the room after being processed by the airpurification module 6, so as to improve the indoor air quality. Sincegenerally there is a temperature difference between the outdoor air andthe indoor air, the outdoor air will cause a temperature change in theindoor air after entering the room. Therefore, the temperature of theindoor air needs to be further adjusted, resulting in higher energyconsumption. In embodiments of the present disclosure, an indoorpurification air inlet is opened in the shell at a positioncorresponding to the air purification module 6. The indoor air candirectly enter the air conditioner through the indoor purification airinlet, and then be blown out from the indoor air outlet 3 after beingprocessed by the air purification module 6. In this way, the indoor airquality is improved. Moreover, when the indoor air re-enters the roomafter being processed by the air purification module 6, it will notcause a temperature change in the indoor air. Therefore, the temperaturedoes not need to be further adjusted, and the energy consumption isrelatively low.

The indoor purification air inlet is also provided with a purificationair inlet damper, and the purification air inlet damper can open orclose the indoor purification air inlet. When there is no need to purifythe indoor air, the purification air inlet damper is closed to reduceenergy consumption.

Similarly, the opening degree of the above-mentioned purification airinlet damper is also adjustable, and in embodiments of the presentdisclosure, an air purification valve 61 is used to adjust the openingdegree of the purification air inlet damper. When the indoor air qualityis superior to the outdoor air quality, the fresh air valve 21 and thepurification air valve 61 can both be closed, so that the airconditioner can performs cooling or heating operations. When the indoorair quality drops, the purification air inlet damper and the outdoordamper can both opened. The opening degree of purification air inletdamper can be adjusted by the purification air valve 61 according tospecific conditions, and the opening degree of the outdoor damper can beadjusted by the fresh air valve 21, so that the air conditioner cansimultaneously performs indoor air purification, fresh air circulationand temperature adjustment operations; if the air conditionersimultaneously performs cooling and air purification operations, coldair and purified normal-temperature air can be pre-mixed, so that theair blown out from the air outlet is cool but not cold, which improvesthe comfort of temperature. When there is no need to adjust the indoortemperature, the indoor damper can be closed by a kinematic mechanism,and the purification air inlet damper and the purification air valve 61can be opened, so that the air conditioner can only performs the airpurification operation. The opening degree of the fresh air valve 21 canbe adjusted according to the oxygen content of the indoor air, so as tocontrol the speed at which the outdoor air flows into the room andimprove the quality and oxygen content of the indoor air.

The foregoing descriptions are merely some specific implementationmanners of the present disclosure, but the protection scope of thepresent disclosure is not limited thereto, and the changes orreplacements that any person skilled in the art can easily think of inthe technical scope disclosed by the present disclosure should be withinthe protection scope of the present disclosure. Therefore, theprotection scope of the present disclosure shall be subject to theappended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. An indoor air conditioner, comprising: a shellincluding an indoor air inlet, an outdoor air inlet, and an air outlet;a centrifugal fan located inside the shell and configured to receive airin from two sides of the shell, the centrifugal fan comprising a firstair inlet side, a second air inlet side, and an air outlet side, whereinthe first air inlet side is located opposite the indoor air inlet,wherein the second air inlet side is located opposite the outdoor airinlet, wherein the air outlet side is located opposite the air outlet;and a heat exchanger located between the first air inlet side and theindoor air inlet.
 2. The indoor air conditioner according to claim 1,wherein the centrifugal fan includes a fan hub; and wherein the firstair inlet side and the second air inlet side are respectively located ontwo sides of the fan hub in an axial direction of the centrifugal fan,such that airflow enters the centrifugal fan in the axial direction ofthe centrifugal fan.
 3. The indoor air conditioner according to claim 1,wherein the centrifugal fan comprises a fan hub, and wherein the fan hubis provided with an air hole for connecting the first air inlet side andthe second air inlet side.
 4. The indoor air conditioner according toclaim 3, wherein a plurality of air holes are included evenly arrangedaround an axis of the centrifugal fan.
 5. The indoor air conditioneraccording to claim 1, wherein the indoor air inlet includes an indoordamper for opening or closing of the indoor air inlet; and wherein theoutdoor air inlet is provided with an outdoor damper for opening orclosing of the outdoor air inlet.
 6. The indoor air conditioneraccording to claim 5, wherein an opening degree of the outdoor damper isadjustable.
 7. The indoor air conditioner according to claim 1, whereinan air purification module is located between the second air inlet sideof the centrifugal fan and the outdoor air inlet.
 8. The indoor airconditioner according to claim 7, wherein the shell includes an indoorpurification air inlet at a position corresponding to the airpurification module.
 9. The indoor air conditioner according to claim 8,wherein the indoor purification air inlet is provided with apurification air inlet damper for opening or closing of the indoorpurification air inlet.
 10. The indoor air conditioner according toclaim 1, wherein the centrifugal fan comprises a fan hub; and wherein afront plate and a rear plate are respectively arranged on two lateraledges of an outer circumference of the fan hub, and the fan hub isprovided with a partition plate arranged between the front plate and therear plate, thereby dividing the air outlet side of the centrifugal faninto a front air outlet side and a rear air outlet side.